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“The Story of Kao Yu” is a new fantasy short story by the legendary Peter S. Beagle which tells of an aging judge traveling through rural China and of a criminal he encounters. Of the story, Beagle says it “comes out of a lifelong fascination with Asian legendry — Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Indonesian — all drawn from cultures where storytelling, in one form of another, remains a living art. As a young writer I loved everything from Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee mysteries to Lafcadio Hearn’s translations of Japanese fairytales and many lesser-known fantasies. Like my story ‘The Tale of Junko and Sayuri,’ ‘The Story of Kao Yu’ is a respectful imitation of an ancient style, and never pretends to be anything else. But I wrote it with great care and love, and I’m still proud of it.“

After the collapse of civilization Nora and her family live a quiet life in the Midwestern Plains until a great fiery god of the sky descends and makes her an irresistible offer—an offer that will take her away from those she loves forever. “Dragons of Tomorrow” is a standalone story by the author of the Stranje House series, available now from Tor Teen.

Miss Pippa Kipling and her automaton companion, the Porter, exterminate pests of the supernatural variety. What should be a typical job in your average haunted cavern soon derails in an inconveniently undead fashion. Even with the aid of her gadget collection and the Porter’s prowess, this task may prove fatal for Miss Kipling—or worse, rip her petticoat.

Dino is a documentary filmmaker, haunted by the ghost of his ex-girlfriend who was killed in a car crash while with another man. As Dino shoots his latest documentary on the vandalism occurring in the woods of his hometown, he tries to move on from her unexpected death. But when his life starts to look up, the ghost encroaches on his property. The focus of the film begins to blur as the lens of the camera shifts onto Dino, the director succumbing to his ghostly obsession.

“The Loud Table” by Jonathan Carroll is an sf-fantasy about four elderly men who regularly hang out. One of the men is worried that he’s getting Alzheimer’s, but the truth might be even more discomforting.

About a year ago, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination published my article titled “A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction.” In the spirit of Charles W. Eliot’s 51-foot shelf of Harvard Classics, I listed 42 short stories and novels that I deemed essential reads for students of Black science fiction and fantasy. This new column will delve more deeply into each of the titles on that list in turn.

My original list is chronological. But I’m going not going to begin this series of columns at that list’s beginning. Nor am I simply going to reverse the list and back up on those 42 titles from its end. Time is not the point here. Meaning is. I give Mama Day (1988) primacy of place in this series because it means some very personal things to me.

I couldn’t be more delighted with last week’s news that Lin-Manuel Miranda will be producing film and TV adaptations based on Pat Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy. It’s no secret that there’s a massive amount of crossover between SFF fandom and people with an abiding love of theater and Broadway musicals, and Hamilton in particular, so for many people this announcement represents an opportunity to cross our favorite streams in the best possible way: JRR Tolkien meets jazz hands; Stephen Sondheim’s blind date with Severus Snape; Sally Bowles live at the Mos Eisley cantina.

It’s also a chance to play the dream-casting game again—I’ve done this once before but I’ve never been fully satisfied with the way it turned out; LMM’s involvement presents the perfect opportunity to cast a wider net and explore the myriad, diverse possibilities offered by the amazing cast of characters Rothfuss has created.

Welcome to Freaky Fridays: War on Christmas edition! From now until Santa has murdered all the naughty children and Krampus is doing a jig in their guts, we’ll be talking about the weird old paperback novels that put the “ow” in snowman.

Normally, I don’t start these columns talking about the cover art, but look at that guy. Just look at him. What you’re seeing is the online dating profile used by the Abominable Snowman when he’s looking for a mate. First, he thoughtfully tells us his age (“thousands of years”) so that we understand he’s a sugar daddy looking for a sugar baby, then he makes sure we know his interests (likes to stalk the earth; is a foodie) ensuring his dietary preferences are front and center because, as we all know, most sugar babies are body conscious and wouldn’t be comfortable feasting at all, let alone on the flesh of humans, since they’re mostly vegan.

OKCupid says men’s profile photos are most effective when they look away from the camera and don’t smile. Yeti’s on it. You should be doing something interesting, preferably with your pet. Yeti is hiking, and he’s his own pet: done. eHarmony advises that your profile photo be flattering, genuine, and accurate. Check, check, and check again. He’s even listed his full name (Norman Bogner) under his username (Snowman). Okay, Yeti is ready to fire his proton torpedoes into your thermal exhaust port, so what’s stopping this hairy snowman? Turns out: everything. YETI IS TERRIBLE AT DATING.

The Raven Cycle author Maggie Stiefvater hit a career highlight this week when a fan brought a live raven to one of her readings! We can only hope it asked a good question during the Q&A. If you’re looking for publishing news highlights, you’ve come to the right place! Click through and you will find news from Neil Gaiman, Brandon Sanderson, and even more best book of the year lists.

What will you do when the robots rise against us? We know it’s coming; even in a show like Westworld, where the robots (or “hosts”) are specifically designed not to hurt humans, they find a way. “Life finds a way,” as Jeff Goldblum said in the seminal classic of our time. But are these robots alive? And do they qualify as a superintelligent, smart enough to be an existential threat to humans? Let’s talk artificial intelligence in Westworld through the lens of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom.

For many people, Bostrom’s book, released in 2014, is the definitive answer to the questions, “Will we eventually create an artificial intelligence powerful enough to doom ourselves? If so, how?” Bill Gates named it as one of two books we need to read in order to understand artificial intelligence. It’s safe to say that Superintelligence can help us understand the hosts in Westworld and their actions.

Killer Kitsch shared this inventive way to display your complete DVD set of The X-Files. Granted, it also serves as a wry commentary on Mulder and Scully’s all-consuming pursuit of THE TRUTH, which often deprived them of companionship…but we may be overthinking this.

We are saddened to report the passing of astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth. Best known for his 1962 mission circling the Earth in the space capsule Friendship 7, Glenn also became the oldest man to travel to space at age 77, on the shuttle Discovery in 1998.

By 2006, the Disney Animation Studios had collected a number of projects in various stages of development, including ideas that had been lingering around for decades, somehow never quite managing to take the next step into development stage. One of many such projects was a little thing about a video game—something Disney storyboard artists had worked on back in the 1980s, and then again in the 1990s, going nowhere until John Lasseter, Disney’s then-new Chief Creative Officer, hearing the magic words “video game,” thought of bringing up the concept to veteran television animation director Rich Moore.

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December 14, 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of Shirley Jackson’s birth. To celebrate, we’re taking a look at some of her most memorable novels and short fiction.

If you asked anyone about a American short story that stuck with them for their entire lives, it would not shock me if they were to think for a moment, and then say, “that one story, ‘The Lottery,’” followed up with some form of, “that shit is fucked up.”

One of the seminal works of American short fiction, “The Lottery” is the most widely-read piece of Shirley Jackson’s to worm its way into the heart of many a reader, but it is far from her only piece worth of attention. While “The Lottery” remains her best known story, Jackson was a prolific writer of short fiction, and though her other stories may not have involved a signature pile of smooth stones, they all demonstrate what Shirley Jackson did best: examined the domestic and interior lives of the insular, the middle class, the lonely, the strange, the aloof, and the cruel, and artfully spun their stories like a stained-glass spider illuminating an indifferent, dark, sharp world.

Trouble is brewing between the Council of the Dead and the ghostly, half-dead, spiritual, and supernatural community they claim to represent. One too many shady deals have gone down in New York City’s streets, and those caught in the crossfire have had enough. It’s time for the Council to be brought down—this time for good.

Carlos Delacruz is used to being caught in the middle of things: both as an inbetweener, trapped somewhere between life and death, and as a double agent for the Council. But as his friends begin preparing for an unnatural war against the ghouls in charge, he realizes that more is on the line than ever before—not only for the people he cares about, but for every single soul in Brooklyn, alive or otherwise…

In the third book of Daniel José Older’s Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, the time has come for the dead to rise up against the shady powers-that-be. Battle Hill Bolero is available January 3, 2017 from Roc.

Welcome back to the Warbreaker reread! Last week, Siri nervously entered the God King’s bedchamber, Lightsong pondered, and Blushweaver flirted. This week, Siri wakes, sleeps, explores, and wonders what to do with herself.

This reread will contain spoilers for all of Warbreaker and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. This is particularly likely to include Words of Radiance, due to certain crossover characters. The index for this reread can be found here.

We’re excited to share the cover for A Song for Quiet, book two in Cassandra Khaw’s Persons Non Grata dark fantasy series. Book one, Hammers on Bone, introduced the unusual occult detective John Persons, hired to hunt a monster. In this standalone story, Persons encounters a new threat that can summon inter-dimensional horrors through the magic of music.

Learn more about the novella and check out the full cover by artist Jeffrey Alan Love below!

The Expanse made a tremendous first impression, and the next novels in the blockbuster space opera Leviathan Wakes started went from strengthto strength, knocking the overarching first contact narrative out of the park at the same time as remaining satisfyingly self-contained. But then there was a wobble—a wobble of opportunity squandered that nearly drove this reader from the series. It fell, finally, to Nemesis Games to right not a sinking ship, but one that was at least listing.

I was delighted that it did. By contracting as opposed to expanding—by firmly and finely focusing on the characters that had been at its heart from the start—Nemesis Games recaptured the intimate magic that The Expanse’s latter chapters lacked, and although it didn’t address the presence of the protomolecule, something dramatic did actually happen in book five: something that completely changed the state of play across the Milky Way.